Information manipulation goes beyond plain disinformation. Fuelling existing grievances and exploiting fission points in target publics, manipulative actors seek to erode sociopolitical consensus and damage trust in political institutions.
In this first ADAC.IO case study, Timo Lenk (TU Dortmund University) illustrates how these behaviours affected the 2024 European elections.
Information manipulation describes the deliberate attempt to subvert public discourse and sabotage democratic processes. However, there is more to information operations than the intentional spread of false information.
This first ADAC.io analyses information manipulations in the context of the 2024 European elections. Focussing on content targeting EU climate policies, the report sheds a light on an ecosystem of Russian propaganda channels and right-wing blogs on the web and on social media, blending falsehoods with distorted facts into twisted messages to amplify existing grievances and damage public trust in political institutions in the run up to the elections.
The case study applies the DISARM Red Framework to analyse English-, Russian-, and German-speaking content while being attentive to manipulations across European borders. It shows how EU policy makers are depicted as technocratic enforcers imposing a green tyranny on sovereign nation states to weaken local economies.
The report illustrates how manipulative actors exploit the fission points in European publics by responding to breaking news events like the farmers’ protests raging at that time, and by playing out climate change mitigation and anxieties of economic decline off against each other. The results reveal the clear aim to amplify Euroscepticism and instigate voters against Brussels ahead of the elections.
Contact: timo-lenk (at) tu-dortmund.de